


I don't sleep (not even in my dreams)

by Wolftraps (AlwaysBoth)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU Post Season 2, PTSD, Sleepwalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-23 05:22:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/922500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysBoth/pseuds/Wolftraps
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek knows why he keeps going back to Lydia's to stop her sleepwalking. It's one more layer of guilt added to his already heavy coat of it. He should have stopped Peter, before he bit her and after he was dead. He was prepared to kill her with minimal evidence; he should have paid more attention. So he knows why he waits outside her house at night. He doesn't know why he sits with her again on the next full moon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't sleep (not even in my dreams)

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-season 3. Inspired by, but basically has nothing to do with [this gifset](http://wolftraps.tumblr.com/post/51492611414/sleepwalker-whispering-fingertips-i-dont)

 

Derek finds her at the old house, standing over the hole Peter crawled out of when he came back to life. Her eyes are open, but she doesn't seem aware of anything. Not the dust and ash stirring in the air or the sound of Derek inching closer. Not even whatever cut on her bare feet has her trailing blood across the rotting, splintered floor. She just stares into the dark, empty space where he buried his uncle.

"Lydia?" he asks, hoping for a reaction, not really sure what to do even if he gets one. He was prepared to kill this girl not so long ago, but he doesn't know her, and after everything, he's not sure how she'll react to seeing him.

She doesn't so much as twitch.

"Lydia," Derek says again, more forcefully, but there's still no response. As he steps forward to grab her shoulder, a cloud shifts and moonlight shines down into the room, reflecting off the mirrors that are still in place and illuminating the empty grave. Suddenly, she's screaming, the noise full of terror and painfully loud to his unprepared ears. She's moving too, scratching at his arm to get it off her and punching him in the nose.

Punching him. In the nose.

It heals quickly, but it still takes him off guard and hurts like hell. She pulls away from him violently, staggering back, and he barely recovers in time to keep her from falling into the hole. He grabs her arms as firmly but gently as he can manage to keep her from hitting him again.

"Lydia. Lydia!" he yells, and she startles, stops, blinks as her eyes seem to clear and focus.

"What-" her voice is small as she looks at him, then at their surroundings. Her face grows hard as she pulls away from him. Gathering herself, she takes another stilted step back before bending down to grab a piece of broken floorboard. She gives him one last determined look before swinging the makeshift bat into one of the mirrors. She doesn't stop until there isn't a shard of glass left in a frame, then drops the board and stalks out across the broken mirrors.

He finds her there again two nights later. After the third time, he follows her home.

\---------

  
Lydia doesn't tell anyone what's happening. Not Allison, not Jackson, not Stiles. Definitely not her mother. None of her friends could spare the time to help her back when that psychopath was really in her head. Now that it's just delusions and somnambulation caused by post traumatic stress, she's determined to handle it on her own.

That doesn't stop her being relieved when Derek Hale starts meeting her at her back gate. When she wakes up, still home and not having to bandage her feet come morning. Some nights it's too much, though.

It's a warm spring night when the full moon comes again. Lydia can't bring herself to sleep tonight. She won't hide, though. She won't stay in her room and cower. Instead, she grabs a glass and a bottle of pinot gris and sits at the edge of the pool with her legs in the water.

A brief spike of fear runs through her when a shadow appears at the gate, but it settles as soon as she makes out Derek's brooding form. He'd really make a much more imposing figure if he didn't slouch. Good posture inspires confidence.

"Wine?" she asks, holding the half empty bottle out by the neck. "It's a little late to pretend you're not there." Derek steps further into the yard, but doesn't come close, standing instead on the other side of the pool, directly across from her.

"Werewolves can't get drunk," he says.

"Not what I asked." She shrugs, though, and takes another drink from her glass. "Shouldn't you be off monitoring your pack?" Lydia can see his jaw clench from where she sits and he goes stiff like a rabbit in headlights. God, for someone so attractive and "powerful" he really doesn't have much confidence.

"No."

Normally she'd probably invite him to see himself out, but the wine and the nagging anxiety she's trying to ignore have her feeling a little more generous. So instead she sets the bottle down beside her with a clink and straightens up. Shoulders back, head high. She gives him a tight smile and stares him in the eye. "Come. Sit."

Finally, Derek stands straight. His eyebrows draw in and his irises flash red. There he is. That is the person she could believe is alpha. The one who killed Peter once. The one who killed Jackson once. The one who was prepared to kill her. "I'm not a dog."

"No, you're a man. And I'm not in the mood. If you're going to stay, sit down." His cheeks hollow, lips purse, but after a moment he takes a few steps back, then jumps over the pool to stand beside her. She looks up at him, raising her eyebrows, and finally he sits. It's almost painfully awkward compared to the previous display. "Good boy," she says, staring at the moon. "Have some wine."

He doesn't. It's not a total loss, though. Halfway through her next glass, and after several minutes of him staring at her, he speaks. "I don't have a pack anymore."

"Jackson? Erica? Isaac? They're just-"

"Erica and Boyd are gone. Jackson and Isaac are with Scott for this moon. They're his pack now." Lydia scoffs at that.

"Please. The day Jackson would choose Scott McCall over any other option is the day they discover the final digit of pi."

They fall silent and he leaves as the sun starts to rise.

\---------

 

Derek knows why he keeps going back to Lydia's to stop her sleepwalking. It's one more layer of guilt added to his already heavy coat of it. He should have stopped Peter, before he bit her and after he was dead. He was prepared to kill her with minimal evidence; he should have paid more attention. So he knows why he waits outside her house at night. He doesn't know why he sits with her again on the next full moon.

"Neglecting the pack again?" she asks, and it stings. Was it neglect that ended up driving them all away? Or was he pushing too hard. He ends up glaring at her because who is she to tell him how to run a pack anyway? "Wasn't a trick question."

He ignores her but doesn't leave. He won't. She passes him a glass, water this time, and he takes it.

"I dream he's still in my head," she says quietly over an hour later. "I dream of him calling me out and not being able to resist. Of walking and walking, following his voice, and not being able to stop no matter how hard I try." She gets louder as she talks, more fearful and more angry.

"I dream he-" She cuts off with a strangled scream of frustration, standing and throwing her glass, watching it shatter on the stone across the pool. Then she turns on him. "Do you have any idea what it's like? To have someone tear you apart from the inside? For them to draw you in and then use you, make you do things you don't want to do. For them to crawl inside you and destroy everything? Do you know what that's like?" Lydia isn't actually crying, but he can smell the salt of tears gathering.

Derek thinks of Kate, holding him down in a grip he could break if he'd known better, making him feel, then curling against him and asking Derek to tell her all about himself. He thinks of the pull of an alpha, of Peter, asking for trust, and then learning it was all a lie and Derek was just another tool for vengeance. He even thinks of Scott, saying he'd join the pack then forcing Derek to give the bite while he couldn't resist.

"Yes," he says, and she stops. Freezes. She sits back down in silence. And she's the first person he ever tells about Kate.

"How do you take it?" Lydia asks afterward, leaning against his arm lightly and sounding far too broken for comfort.

"I let the anger take over. Let it drive me; made it my anchor." And just like that she's back to normal, pulling away and looking at him incredulously.

"That sounds like a phenomenally terrible idea."

\----------

 

Lydia stays up on the next new moon and takes a small amount of amusement from the look of surprise she's just quick enough to catch.

"Nightmares?" Derek asks, and Lydia certainly hopes her look adequately conveys how stupid she thinks the question it.

"Always. That's not why I'm up now, though."

"You're not drinking," he observes.

"No need tonight. Now, let's get down to business. Shoulders back, head up."

"What?"

"Please, I need something to do with Allison not speaking to anyone, and Jackson needs a proper alpha. So I'm going to make you one."

 

**Author's Note:**

> Visit me on [tumblr](http://wolftraps.tumblr.com)


End file.
